​1 year after Gaza War, Palestinians still live amid ruins, thousands homeless

It has been a year since Israel launched its offensive against Gaza, killing thousands of people, damaging and destroying their homes. RT’s Lizzie Phelan has visited the besieged enclave, witnessing how people still live amid the rubble of war.

Somaya, a resident of an
eastern town in the Gaza strip located near the Israeli border,
is forced to find any bits and pieces for cooking fuel, including
cardboard and wood from the temporary container home.

“It would be better to live in a tent, amid the ruins of my
own home than here,” she says. “I have dreams that I am
back at home but then I wake up and realize I am living in a
container.”

Thousands of Gazans are
observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan amid the rubble of
their homes, Phelan reports from Gaza. Even going to pray has
become harder, as Israel’s missiles hit mosques – and little of
what was destroyed has been rebuilt.

“This is the worst humanitarian condition that Gaza has ever
witnessed,” Amjad Y. Shawa, head of the office of the
Palestinian NGO Network, told RT.

“One year after the war, the rubble is still on the streets.
This is the rubble of thousands of Gaza houses. Tens of thousands
of families are living during Ramadan under the rubble of their
houses.”

Israel launched its military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza
Strip, which it dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” on July 8,
2014. The operation, which was in retaliation to Hamas rocket
fire, claimed the lives of some 2,251 Palestinians, mostly
civilians, and 72 Israelis, according to the UN.

The 50-day war destroyed or damaged 18,000 homes. The rebuilding
has been stalled by border restrictions and political tensions.

“The Israeli military destroyed our homes with airstrikes and
then bulldozed entire neighborhoods,” a resident of East
Gaza, Abu Mohamad Kadaih, told RT.

“People were promised that their homes would be rebuilt but
that never happened. We can’t rebuild ourselves because the war
left us with nothing.”

According to a report Monday by global children's charity Save
the Children, around 100,000 people in Gaza are still homeless.

The report added that, according to the latest estimates, some
551 children were killed during Israel’s offensive, while 3,436
were injured and an estimated 1,500 lost their parents.

“Many children in Gaza have now lived through three wars in
the past seven years, the last one notable for its brutality.
They are emotionally and, in some cases, physically
shattered,” said Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save
the Children.

The report said that the majority of children, up to 75 percent
are showing signs of severe emotional distress, including high
levels of bed wetting and nightmares. Meanwhile, 89 percent of
parents reported that their children suffer consistent feelings
of fear, and more than 70 percent of children said they worried
about another war.

"We saw our home being destroyed. I was crying because we
have memories and dreams there, from the day of our birth. My
memories, pictures, clothes, toys ... everything is gone. I can't
live, I only feel pain," the charity quoted a 12-year-old
girl as saying.

The latest UN report, published in June, has accused both Israel
and Palestinian armed groups of possible war crimes during the
2014 Gaza conflict, calling the devastation
“unprecedented.”

“The extent of the devastation and human suffering in Gaza
was unprecedented and will impact generations to come,” the
commission’s chairwoman, New York judge Mary McGowan Davis, said
in a statement.